Dan

It's more exciting isn't it. Less of a known quantity. Might be bad. Might be comfortably our best player. I'd start him Saturday. People will say he needs to get up to speed and whatnot but we have nobody available up front who would be "up to speed" anyway so the worst case is he plays as badly as the other options.

I agree, it's only really going to be an asset to supplement an already good set up. Imploding the way we have done after building it is a bit of a disaster and arguably makes it a liability rather than an asset. I think some on here are maybe a little unrealistic with the level that we should have a young team but I do think in our position this is the route we need to be looking to go up really. Actually develop a reputation for ourselves as a club it's worth sticking around at until about 18 if nothing else. I mean I've seen people saying get Page back on loan - would he even bother? He isn't even guaranteed to play.

I'm not going to hammer the club on this one because I think this is a systematic error rather than our own, and Seagrave was a noble idea, but I do think we're going to see all the drawbacks from it (big costs) while seeing quite few of the benefits. That's four times now I think this has happened?

I agree with you and we don't want that but I'd have been trying to cull anyone of a certain wage or above in this position, and that almost certainly includes Harry Souttar, who I actually do quite like as it happens.

We were bound to get these in a cup this season with all these signings between the two.

If we draw Fulham or Chelsea today this'll probably move to Sunday.

I agree with you, but I don't think it's a good position to be in either. I think Souttar goes. Faes will surely go. Okoli probably ends up staying by default but not impossible he leaves as well. I wouldn't be throwing big money in any direction. This summer I think £1mil on a fee would've been my max and probably wouldn't have signed anyone, maybe one exception on over £10k a week. I think there were options within these parameters. An example, who we won't be signing now is Ethan Pye from Stockport. 23 years old. Left sided. Started all 46 games for a team who finished 3rd in the league last season and only had a year left on his contract, but as of a week or so ago he signed a new deal. I think someone like this if we'd pursued it would've been attainable for under what I said. But what we'll probably do is give John Souttar £25k a week.

I thought this until Gray didn't come on for Nelson v Genoa. Made me think he's a way down the pecking order.

With our centre half situation this just seems so short sighted again. Like Cartwright he'd be a fine squad option who wouldn't cost us much in wages.

Another total waste of money. No doubt we'll somehow find the money to get another 3rd choice in for £10k a week but skimp it when it comes to another striker.

Our possession numbers would be high this season regardless of manager. For me it's the intent on the ball. I saw scant evidence of it yesterday. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for a game but if that isn't fixed he will lose me, and everyone pretty quickly. When I say lose me, I was never really on board in the first place, but he's here and there's no point pretending he won't be for a while. If the signs are just endless possession for the sake of it, and giving away stupid goals, he will rightly lose people.

The defence is a mess. You've got four senior CBs, three of them could feasibly make a move before the end of the window and the other might have done if he hadn't done his ACL. We really need a bit of reliability here. We should've fixed this far sooner than now. I think an absolute minimum of two need to arrive. What's happened with Wilson-Brown? He'd be an obvious 3rd/4th choice - possibly higher if he's actually good.

I really don't get loads of joy out of pure pace types on this version and I think I've become too set in certain tactics. He's only rated 2 star but that is clearly nonsense and it's judging him as a centre half. But yeah we're not a bad side now. Not far off finished another season.

Martin will get loads more time with these than he probably deserves. They really see him as their sort of vision. I wouldn't be surprised if he survived a midtable finish.

It's all about setting yourself up to fit an elite team. It worked with Kompany who inexplicably got the Bayern job off the back of a dreadful Burnley season. But it's kind of worked out as well so I don't think it'll stop now.

He'll pick it up. May take a bit of time. I'm OK with his ability staying around what it is now tbh. He'd be a perfectly OK backup striker. I've given him the odd game there. He's looked alright. It's quite hard to train this without playing him every game though and I simply can't.

I'd caveat by saying if it was up to me I'd have been using him a long time ago and I wouldn't be so wedded to this type of football we're seemingly obsessed with. But the whole thing is an ill fit. Our recruitment really is ridiculous. It's so brainless. Square pegs in round holes constantly.

Had a change of heart on Souttar to be honest. I still think he is our highest ceiling CB, but he's just simply not suited to playing in a Martin side. If we're really going up this route then I think it'd be wise to cash in. Same with Okoli.

He'll get better than League Two IMO.

Sums us up that he's wanted by that calibre of club and we shunned him for dross like Winks, Skipp and Soumare.

That's more encouraging. Maybe he won't actually tolerate it as much as the others.

Been a chronic issue for years. I don't think our business has done much to fix it either.

Would imagine he'll have probably retired by the time of the next World Cup.

Stolarczyk Joseph Okoli Souttar McFarlane Braybrooke Page Burns Cullen Alves Bristric

Absolute waste of space player. Cannot feature this season.